What motivates Peter Thiel apart from the desire for more wealth?

If you’ve only heard one thing about Peter Thiel (and many have heard nothing at all) it is that he is a believer in the power of young blood. The tech multibillionaire and founding investor of the surveillance company Palantir is a public advocate of parabiosis, an experimental field of biology investigating whether transfusions of blood from young people to older ones can stall or even reverse ageing. Rumours that Thiel himself has received such transfusions have persisted for years. When asked about them directly in a rare interview, he replied simply: ‘I’m not a vampire.’

Max Chafkin’s The Contrarian makes for deeply uncomfortable reading. This meticulous biography of big tech’s leading conservative figure (Thiel was a prominent Trump backer, and spoke at the 2016 Republican convention) is full of moments that would startle those with the hardiest constitutions. He emerges as a man feared not only by his enemies but by his close associates.